I'LL NEVER STOP SAYING MARIA

Sixteen years ago I got a second chance at my own life, like reincarnation without the death part. As Martina McBride sings about her own daughter, "The truth is plain to see: she was sent to rescue me." I read a book called "Mother Daughter Revolution" when Maria was a toddler and underlined this sentence: "Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future."

My hope and my dream for the future of women comes trudging up the stairs every afternoon, her hair bundled into a bun. Last year she gave almost a foot of it away to make a wig for a kid going through chemo, but she mourned her lost length tearfully for a week afterward. Don't get me wrong: she's no saint. But she is strong and smart and funny, everything I've ever treasured. Oh, if I could grow up to be Maria, to be the kind of person who could jump off that cliff without thinking twice or looking down. For decades my role model was my mother. Now it's my daughter. I'm just the woman who was lucky enough to come between the two.

© 2004